


Psychidementia

by Ladsalt



Category: Homestuck, Original Work
Genre: Abuse, Betrayal, F/F, Fantrolls, Helmstrolls, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Obsession, Obsessive Behavior, Past Abuse, Psychic Abilities, Psychic Violence, Victim Blaming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 03:20:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20382820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladsalt/pseuds/Ladsalt
Summary: Once Lillan Toohey was a young burgundy blood, with strong psychic abilities, rebellious aspirations- and a circle of just the right trolls to carry them out, and with a lovely young troll with whom she had built the perfect matespritship. Caught by the empire, subdued in one of their godsforsaken facilities, and with her psychic abilities turned against her former allies, Lillan obsesses over how she ended up this way. Her blame zeroes in on the matesprit who turned her in.





	Psychidementia

In retrospect Lillan resented having ever become involved with Orelle Obrien. The pretty pan empty brownblood had brought her nothing but pain. It had hurt when the fleet had sent soldiers and drones to drag them all out of her hive. Seeing the sweeps of planning and work establishing her network of agents and rebels crushed under the Empresses heel had hurt. Of course it hurt too when they threw her unceremoniously into a cell while they decided what to do with a treasonous psychic rustblood.

They murdered Lillans lussi- the ones in her hive at least- and Lillan remembered the deaths flashing through her mind as the poor beasts lost control of their psychic abilities in their death throes. They had died almost instantly but Lillan felt the broken nerves of their decapitated bodies firing into her pan. The agony in her pan had dulled the rawness of her throat when their deaths had caused her to scream herself hoarse, and she had almost welcomed the dampening collar that embedded itself into her spinal column and the sting of humiliation that surged through her when they put it on.

It hurt to try and reach out inside her communal pan and find herself alone for the first time.

What did not hurt was knowing that Orelle had turned her in. Of course being turned in hurt, but it occurred to Lillan, after the collar had dulled her psychic senses enough that she could think again, she should have felt heartbroken perhaps at the betrayal of a longtime matesprit. All she could think was shed been a fool to let Orelle do things on her own. Stupid fucking Orelle.

Never mind that when they had met Orelle had been one of the sharpest knives in the box of aspiring rebel trolls Lillan had attracted to herself. Her pan then had been just as clear and focused as anyone's. It wasn't until the first time Lillan had pressed her mouth to her then girlfriends forehead after a disagreement, to smooth all the stray and, unproductive, thoughts back into line that Orelle started to stop speaking in the middle of sentences. 

Embarrassing, how Lillan remembered having to smile and remind her, " Dearest, you were just saying?"

And Orelle would blink and then laugh, "I was? Sufferer I've forgotten what…"

And the first time of course couldn't be the last time, because Orelle was very opinionated and how did it look for Lillian's own matesprit to be disagreeing with her over every little thing? But Lillan knew how to make things work out, and that was what good matesprits did wasn't it? Gave each other space when they needed it and then came back to kiss and makeup and just, smooth things back into place.

As embarrassing as it was, Orelle lost her train of thought occasionally, and then more often, and it wasn't unmanageable. Until they had a real fight, over Orelle going to work in the fleet of all things. She had to of course. Lillan needed a troll in the censure department for the rest of the operations to run smoothly. To Orelle though the very concept of working for the empire, even if it was to undermine, was anathema.

So they fought, and Lillan left Orelle her space.

Later they kissed and made up.

And Orelle signed on to be a fleet censor.

It was easy enough to force a troll physically to perform an action with psychic manipulation, if you didn't mind what they would think of you for it. Although it was another thing altogether to actually change their beliefs and values, Lillan did not have the time to spare to constantly be in control of Orelles mind. But Lillan had always expected some collateral damage in the course of achieving her goals.

Still she had not expected it to be so inconvenient. Orelle would wake up and stare blankly around their block, unable to place where she was, until Lillan sighed and smiled and kissed it better. Nudging everything into its proper place.

Trolls began to comment on how wonderful a couple they must be. They never fought or argued anymore. Wasn't it so doting the way Lillan looked after Orelle? So sweet how Orelle clung to her when they were together.

Orelle couldn't possibly have understood how difficult it was to keep her pan together, to keep up appearances. She couldn't even keep her wits long enough to find her own way hive from work anymore. Lillan ran her tongue over Orelles teeth and picked the most favorable ways to fill in all the gaps in her memory again and again and again.

Orelle became more confused. Then the stupid ditz forgot again why she was working for the Empire at all, and turned them all in. 

Perhaps it hadn't hurt because Lillan had already half hated her. Not even the good kind of hate- a dull platonic long suffering chore of a hate. And as much as she didn't want to say she had never loved Orelle, it was certainly true that the brownblood had been...much more invested in their relationship.

The betrayal was annoying at most.

There were not trials for lowblood nobody traitors like Lillan Toohey. As far as the empire was concerned now that she had been caught, she did not, maybe had never, existed. Orelle had probably already scrubbed her name from the Imperial records. They muzzled her and wouldn't let anyone touch her skin when they removed the collar to install her into a helm setup. That confused Lillan- she had never heard of helms being for anyone except psionics- this one wasn't even on a ship.

The worst pain yet came when the technicians dragged in some other poor rebel, and Lillan felt the helm tearing at her own powers directing them clumsily through a terminal into the other trolls pan. If what she had done to Orelle was gentle, delicate even, this was taking a hammer to their head. Lillan could not see how the other troll was faring when they left but imagined there wasn't much left of the troll that had been brought in. And every night the technicians had more trolls that had been accused of treason who needed their pans adjusted. Every night Lillan had her powers ripped out of her pan

Her hair went grey and then white in shocks. When enough time had passed that her organs began to fail and decay, the Technisurgeons took the ones she didn't need and replaced the ones she did with new biomechanical organs.

If, when she had been young, Lillan had hated the Empire, if she had resented Orelle, that feeling had taken root and grown. Unable to do anything about it, the thought of how much she hated Orelle for putting her in this situation consumed Lillan. It ground her teeth flat in her mouth thinking about tearing Orelles mind to pieces in her pan. Her fingers curled and tensed imagining they were clutching strands of the brownbloods hair. It was an all consuming obsessive hatred that Lillan had assumed she would take to the grave- or as was seeming an ever more likely alternative- into this torturous unending half death.

Then one night the technicians left, and someone else came. Lillan could not see them through the helm, but they weren't wearing the non-slip rubber soled shoes of fleet workers. Their feet made soft sharp sounds, of someone walking delicately in heeled shoes. 

There was a familiar scratching at her pan, not like the helm, like her lussi. The first time in a long time Lillan realized she was not alone in her pan.

"We need to hurry Elsie, before they come ba-" one of the strangers began, a familiar high-pitched voice but not the stranger Lillan was interested in.

"Darling, do shut up. There are things that need focusing on right now," Again something brushed against her pan more certainly.

The stranger had a low voice that was more sonorous than Lillan expected- but she herself had always had a lovely singing voice.

His hand rested against hers, the same temperature, and Lillan felt the light comfortable pressure of his pan melting into hers again. Their thoughts mixing and coming in tandem to a natural combined equilibrium.

" Hello, Mother Dear."


End file.
